


Cinnamon

by Soulhearts



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Basically, Fluff, Gen, New Arm for Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 04:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulhearts/pseuds/Soulhearts
Summary: Bucky's having trouble with a new arm, so Steve suggests a walk.





	Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> A Plot Bunny.

Bucky huffs loudly to the quiet room, his frustration reaching a breaking point as he picks up another pencil after snapping the previous one in half. That's three pencils now. Their wooden remains scattered over the table.

Over the rim of his book, Steve glances up and meets his eyes. Bucky knows Steve doesn't mean his fondly exasperated smile to be patronising, but he cannot help how he feels about that look in Steve's eyes.

“You'll get it, Buck.” Steve encourages. “I know you will.”

He just scowls and looks back down at the paper on the table. It's covered in dots and too-hard lines.

“This is stupid.”

Abruptly shoving the chair away from the table, the pencil drops from his hand at the same time Steve's smile does from his face.

“No, _hey_ , Bucky,” he closes the book and lays it down as he stands. “No, I know this must be irritating, but don't give up now.” He moves around to kneel next to Bucky, who has hunched over himself, angry, filled with self-loathing and frustration. Steve takes his hands in his own and squeezes them.

“I'm fed up. I'm not doing this anymore. Tony can take his stupid calibrations back, I'd rather have my arm the way it was before,” comes his bitter, angry response. “I hate this.”

“Buck,” Steve begins softly, face troubled by the venom in the Bucky's tone. “You—”

“ _Don't_ , Steve,” he snaps. “I don't want your pity or _encouragement_ _―_ _”_ he spits the word like it's on fire. “I just want my old arm.”

Steve's clearly not sure what he means. His H.Y.D.R.A. arm? Even though it was bolted to his skeletal structure and literally tore him apart every time he used it. Or his flesh arm, lost long ago and irretrievable, possibly nothing more than dust now. The only part of him that wasn't brutalised time and again.

Bucky's not entirely sure himself.

He drops his head, chin nearly to his chest, eyes squeezed shut with limp hair falling in place to shield his expression.

Steve waits a beat, until he's sure the anger in Bucky has bled out into something else – defeat, maybe.

“You want to go out for a bit?”

The non sequiter catches Bucky by surprise, possibly as intended, and he lifts his head to meet serious, blue eyes.

“Get some fresh air,” Steve continues, unable to help himself from shooing the fly-aways out of Bucky's face, even as he searches for some hidden meaning or reason in Steve's face. “Might help.” He adds. “Sitting here ain't doing any good at least.”

He weighs it up.

Steve's right.

Steve's often right. Or righteous. Or both.

He shrugs, but they both know that's code for, _'okay'_.

So Steve grabs a coat to ward of the autumn chill, and wraps a hideous yellow scarf around Bucky's neck as soon as he's close enough to be wrestled into it, then they're out the door.

Then they're out on the street. The Brooklyn apartment steadily growing farther and farther away, along with Bucky's frustrations that unbutton with each continuing step.

Steve stops by a vendor on their way to the park and purchases four cinnamon doughnuts, three of which Bucky has consumed before Steve's even finishes his first. He likes cinnamon. It's the best spice, hands down. Goes with everything. He makes sure Steve knows this too. It's annoying when it gets on the arm though, so he makes sure the left arm and his doughnut do not become anything more than acquaintances.

The small smile on Steve's face isn't patronising anymore. It's still fond, but Bucky doesn't feel that same frustration toward it, and the peals of laughter that rise out of him when Bucky carries on for another minute and a half about cinnamon only serves to lighten his heart further.

By the time they've walked one quarter of the park, runners and bundled-up business people passing them by, all doughnuts have been consumed and he feels no shame regarding the crumbs that have fallen into Steve's ugly scarf. Too bad he'll have to wash it before making Bucky wear the silly thing again.

It's not cold enough to snow yet and it's the grossest time of year in Bucky's opinion. Not warm enough for actual warmth, but not cold enough to actually be cold. Just that miserable in between. Grey clouds and brown leaves.

Halfway around the park another vendor appears, but this time Bucky purchases two hot drinks for the both of them. Steve is too busy grinning like a loon at the golden retriever, sitting with it's owner, who is too busy tapping away at her phone to note that Captain America is sitting on the opposing bench looking like a loon.

Bucky buys two hot cocoas – he asks for added cinnamon on one, just because he the kind of person who'll eat the same kind of food for two weeks before finally deciding he hates it.

When he returns to Steve's side, the cinnamon hot cocoa is taken away from him.

“You just told me cinnamon is your favourite spice, Bucky, not gonna let you hate another food that you actually like.” Is Steve's explanation. Fair.

It's a positive experiment however, as the other hot chocolate has caramel as an extra. Steve complains about this when he finds out. Caramel is his favourite. Shouldn't've taken the cinnamon one away from me, pal. That's the price you pay. (He lets Steve have a couple of sips, nonetheless. He did eat a majority of the doughnuts after all).

Having done one huge loop of the park, Bucky finds a sliver of disappointment when he sees the end of the trail, pointing right back to the place they walked in. He doesn't want to go home and end up feeling frustrated and useless again.

He doesn't tell Steve this. Just wrings his hands nervously as the tension builds back into his shoulders.

They're nearly at their apartment when Steve stops, right in the middle of the side-walk, to take Bucky's hands. He hadn't even noticed he'd been wringing them ever since Steve plucked the empty cocoa cup from them to throw in the trash on their way out of the park, not until now, anyway.

“What's got you so tied up, hm?” Steve says, ignoring the glares of the people side-stepping around them. “You look like you're ready to bolt, Buck. What's the matter?”

His eyes flicker either side, shooting glares back to the people who glared at Steve first.

“Is this about your arm again?”

He doesn't reply, but he doesn't have too.

“You don't want to keep practising with it, am I right?”

He gives a small nod.

“You know,” Steve says, taking Bucky's left hand in his own, despite how freezing the metal must be and how much like a couple they look to the world right now. He tugs gently as he starts to move again and Bucky goes willingly, following like the loyal hound H.Y.D.R.A. made him to be – though, that trait might actually have come intrinsically. “I know I never told you this, but after the serum, I was even less coordinated than you're feeling right now. In a pinch everything would come together, react the way my body had when I was small, perhaps just because of the adrenaline. But when things were calm, I was like a newborn lamb. Tripping over my feet every couple of seconds. Wasn't easy. I never was very coordinated to begin with, if you'll remember. You were always the better dancer.

But it'll all become like second nature eventually. Your arm will become part of you again, just like your H.Y.D.R.A. arm did before this one, just like that arm did when you lost your original arm.”

And before Bucky can think too hard on where it is they're going, suddenly, Steve's opening the door to their house.

“You really think it'll happen like that, Steve?” He asks, switching on the hall light.

“I do. You'll get it, Buck.” Steve says, parroting his words from earlier. “I know you will.”


End file.
